Jordan’s King Abdullah II reiterated on Monday his firm opposition to the displacement of Palestinians.
His remarks came during a meeting with military retirees at the Royal Hashemite Court, according to a statement.
King Abdullah II in a meeting with veterans in Jordan today: “NO to displacement in Gaza and the West Bank.” He added emphasizing that Gaza can be rebuilt without displacing its people. pic.twitter.com/dMYsrEm41t
“For 25 years, I have been saying no to displacement, no to resettlement, no to the alternative homeland,” the court quoted the monarch as saying, denouncing “those who question these firm positions.”
He also reiterated “the importance of de-escalation in the West Bank,” highlighting that “achieving just peace on the basis of the two-state solution is the only way to guarantee stability in the region,” according to Anadolu.
The Jordanian monarch underscored that “preserving Jordan’s interest and stability and protecting Jordan and Jordanians are above all considerations,” stressing the importance of rebuilding Gaza “without displacing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Trump hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House last week, renewing his insistence that Gazans be relocated and the enclave controlled by the US to be redeveloped into a tourist area.
The ceasefire deal has been in place in Gaza since Jan. 19, pausing Israel’s genocidal war that has killed nearly 48,300 Palestinians and left the enclave in ruins.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November last year for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
The Hind Rajab Foundation has filed an ICC complaint against Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar ahead of his visit to Brussels, accusing him of complicity in crimes of displacement and starvation against Palestinians. The foundation called on Belgium to take immediate action against him under international law, as Sa’ar is scheduled to visit Brussels on February 18.
Amnesty International on Friday criticized US President Donald Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC after it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former minister Galant, saying it “betrays” the international justice system. In a statement, Agnes Callamard, secretary general of the rights group based in the UK, said the sanctions suggest Trump endorses the Israeli government’s crimes and is embracing impunity. “This reckless action sends the message that Israel is above the law and the universal principles of international justice,” she added.
In a proposal that has sent shockwaves across the globe, President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” has faced fierce criticism from legal experts and human rights activists.
Trump’s controversial plan came during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where he said the US “will take over the Gaza Strip,” and proposed the permanent resettlement of Palestinians.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio later clarified Trump’s remarks, describing the plan as a “generous” offer aimed at rebuilding the war-ravaged enclave, adding that “people can move back in” after reconstruction.
According to Michael Lynk, who served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories from 2016 to 2022, Trump’s plan “clearly” violates international law.
“Under international law, it’s clearly illegal,” Lynk, currently an associate professor at the University of Western Ontario, told Anadolu. “Just talking about the forced displacement of Palestinians — the ethnic cleansing of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza — that would be a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which both the United States and Israel have signed on to.”
#Trump "has no legal authority to do what he proposed. Expelling a people from their land so that #America or #Israel can take it is a #WarCrime. So, you have one convicted criminal and one alleged criminal [#Netenyahu] making plans that are illegal." https://t.co/bj20q1hGRe
Lynk also pointed out the legal repercussions of such an action under the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“It would also be a crime against humanity,” he added, noting that the ICC has jurisdiction over Gaza, even though neither the US nor Israel are signatories of the Rome Statute. “Their leaders could be criminally liable for initiating forced displacement of the Palestinians.”
As the world watches closely, the UN Security Council has already addressed Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 62,000 people, having added thousands who are missing in the rubble, since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s authorities.
In June 2024, the Security Council adopted resolution 2735, calling for an immediate and durable ceasefire in Gaza and rejecting any attempts at “demographic or territorial change” in the Gaza Strip.
“We have both these strong legal and diplomatic guardrails that would be opposed to this,” Lynk said, referring to the both Rome Statute and the June 2024 Security Council resolution.
‘Clearly a war crime’
Jonathan Kuttab, an international human rights lawyer and Executive Director of the Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), a movement of Palestinian Christians, also voiced strong criticism of Trump’s controversial Gaza plan. Describing the proposal as “shocking on many levels,” Kuttab said that it “totally disregards international law.”
“You can’t just go and take another piece of territory and own it,” he told Anadolu. “It’s a war crime. It’s clearly a war crime.”
Kuttab also pointed to the moral dimensions of the plan, calling it “totally immoral.”
He questioned how it was even conceivable to displace over 2 million people in the Gaza Strip from their homes, likening this to an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
“He (Trump) is saying it in the presence of Netanyahu, who’s smirking because he’s the one who destroyed Gaza,” Kuttab noted. “It’s totally unacceptable. It’s also anachronistic.”
Kuttab added that the proposal’s underlying motive was both ideological and practical.
“The ideological aspect is to get people to start thinking in terms of accepting the idea that Palestinians can be removed from Palestine permanently,” he said. “The practical thing is to allow Netanyahu’s government to survive … The government will collapse unless you resume the war, or unless you do something to get rid of the people in Gaza. So Trump is willing to do the work for Netanyahu.”
ICC’s ability to issue arrest warrants for Trump
Lynk also indicated that if the US, with the support of Israel, forcibly removes Palestinians from Gaza and forces them either to Egypt or Jordan, the ICC would have the ability to issue arrest warrants for Trump, Netanyahu, and others involved in such a plan.
The implications of Trump’s proposal extend beyond legal concerns. The international community, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, have strongly rejected such a move. Everyone in the region and beyond remembers the long history of Palestinian displacement, including the 1948 Nakba, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes, never to be able to go back.
“No Arab or Muslim leader in the region could ever support the forced displacement of Palestinians,” Lynk said.
If Palestinians must leave Gaza, ‘the appropriate place would be Israel’
“If Palestinians have to leave Gaza in order for the rubble to be removed from the war that Israel inflicted on Gaza and to remove the 30,000 unexploded munitions in Gaza, then … the appropriate place for them to move to would be Israel itself,” he suggested.
This, Lynk argued, would fulfill the right of return as enshrined in UN Resolution 194, which guarantees Palestinians this right to go back to their homes that Israel forced them to leave.
“That would seem to be the path that is most consistent with international law and with a rights-based approach.”
The implications of Trump’s proposal could reach beyond the borders of Gaza. Lynk expressed concern that the plan could pave the way for further Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Trump has already reversed Biden-era policies regarding the West Bank by removing sanctions on Israeli settlers and groups.
‘We don’t have to wait for the Hague to act’
Lynk and Kuttab agree that Trump’s plan would be dead on arrival, given the unified rejection it would face from the Arab and Muslim world.
However, Kuttab warned that if Trump attempts to follow through, it would severely undermine the international order.
“The Security Council, of course, will do nothing, because there is the veto power there, but national countries have the right under international law — in fact, the obligation to do something,” he continued.
“We don’t have to wait for the Hauge to act … Every country has local courts that can carry out and implement international law, because crimes against humanity and war crimes have universal jurisdiction,” he stressed in Anadolu.
US President Donald Trump has made an astonishing and deeply troubling proposal: the United States should take control of Palestine’s Gaza and transform it into a ‘Riviera of the Middle East’. He even claimed, “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the US owning that piece of land.” The question is: who exactly is this “everybody”?
The answer seems clear when you consider that Trump made this announcement standing beside none other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of the ongoing devastation in Gaza.
To further amplify the absurdity, Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State, took to social media to gleefully tweet: “Make Gaza Beautiful Again.” This is a vision that sees Gaza not as a place of human struggle, resilience, and history, but as an empty plot of land—waiting to be “beautified” by foreign intervention, with little regard for the millions of lives it holds.
UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese condemns Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and place the area under US control, calling it "unlawful, immoral, and irresponsible"
Gaza has been on the news headlines again after October 7, 2023. Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea surround it. Movement into and out of it is heavily controlled, as Israel has enforced a nearly complete land, sea, and air blockade of the area since 2007.
This small pocket of land has attracted the world’s attention every one or two years for the last one and a half decades but is also sometimes forgotten. If you are someone who is reading about Gaza for the first time in your life with this article, you may think the author is talking of a deserted island, uninhabitable place, or “a land without a people.”
In fact, Gaza is 365 square kilometres of land, and it inhabits 2,351,000 people, which makes it one of the densest areas in the world, with 6441 people per square km. One should also avoid the statisticalisation trap where people who are living in Gaza are human beings with stories and memories. They are faces rather than mere numbers. However, it becomes clear that political language in the United States with the new Donald Trump administration will be based on the dehumanisation of Gaza.
The implications of his words at the press conference on February 5, are staggering. Trump’s proposal is a glaring reminder that in the eyes of many world leaders, the people of Gaza—Palestinians—are reduced to little more than background noise in a geopolitical game.
This isn’t just about land or politics; it’s about the systematic erasure of a people, their history, and their struggle for self-determination. To Trump, Gaza isn’t a place of suffering and resistance—it’s an opportunity for rebranding. It’s a strip of land to be “fixed,” a place to be renovated into a “tourist destination,” regardless of who lives there or the decades of hardship they’ve endured under a brutal occupation and blockade.
Colonialism rebranded
What Trump’s rhetoric reveals is a deeply troubling mindset—a belief that Palestinians in Gaza have no voice, no agency, and no right to self-determination or votes.
Their homes, their land, their very existence, are reduced to a resource for someone else to exploit, more valuable than the people living on it. This may come as a surprise to some observers, but this is a modern-day manifestation of colonialism, echoing the Manifest Destiny doctrine in the United States—a belief that one nation has a divine right to control another’s land, regardless of the people who have lived there for generations. It’s the kind of thinking that has long fuelled the oppression of indigenous peoples, and it is alive and well in Trump’s vision for Gaza.
The legal context around this proposal only deepens its gravity. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.
And yet, Trump’s words seem to offer a dangerous legitimisation of the very actions that have brought Gaza to the brink of collapse. Netanyahu’s rhetoric only adds fuel to the fire. In a speech soon after October 7 where he infamously referred to Palestinians as “animals” and invoked the biblical story of the Amalekites, justifying violence with religious fervour. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you,” he said.
This was not an ordinary reference, but put in the context of war, it could be interpreted as “genocidal intent.” Netanyahu was referring to the following passage; “‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
This is not just inflammatory speech—it’s the rhetoric of destruction, one that seeks to dehumanise and erase an entire population.
Trump’s chilling comments about the people of Gaza add to this. When asked whether Palestinians would ever be able to return to their homes if Gaza were to fall under US control, Trump responded bluntly: “I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell…the only reason they want to go back is because they have no alternative.”
Notice how he frames it: Gaza isn’t a homeland—it’s a prison. Palestinians, in his view, are not people with rights, dreams, or a history—they are mere sufferers, trapped in a place they should leave behind. The use of “they” is telling: Trump doesn’t even use the word “Palestinian” when he talks about Gaza. It’s as though the very identity of the people who live there has been erased.
Resilience
But despite the relentless violence and oppression, the spirit of the people of Gaza remains unbroken. After the ceasefire between Palestinian resistance forces and Israel, which came after weeks of unimaginable destruction, Gaza’s resilience was on full display. Thousands of Palestinians returned to their homes in the northern part of Gaza, even though Israel has tried to make it uninhabitable.
World leaders unite in their opposition of US President Donald Trump's controversial plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza, say a two-state solution is crucial 🔗 https://t.co/8amNPSj1zipic.twitter.com/uLRa3DguCx
This wasn’t just a physical return—it was a powerful statement of defiance, a refusal to be erased. During the release of Israeli hostages, Palestinians expressed solidarity with the resistance in a show of strength: smiling, cheering, even taking photos with fighters from the Qassam Brigades. This is a people who refuse to submit to occupation. Their will is unshaken.
So, while Trump’s words might make headlines, they also expose the lengths to which certain powers will go to suppress Palestinian resistance, to break their spirit, and to erase their struggle for justice. If this vision is allowed to continue, the Middle East could be facing a future marked by further instability, deepened injustice, and a growing humanitarian crisis.
But as Gaza has shown time and time again, the Palestinian struggle will not be easily silenced. No matter the attempts to erase them from the map, the people of Gaza will remain, with their history, their identity, and their fight for freedom.
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